China's natural gas exploration and development strategies under the new normal

China's natural gas industry has experienced a great leap-forward development in the past decade. Since the second half of 2014, however, international oil price has dropped sharply and global oil and gas markets have been sluggish. In China, economy growth rate slows down and resource environments tend to be more restricted. And energy production and consumption revolution speed up, and the development of natural gas industry experience profound changes internally and externally. Through review on the achievements in recent high-speed development and analysis on the future development of China's natural gas industry, it is believed that the growth rates of China's natural gas output and consumption will slow down and the supply and demand fundamentals present loose states. Low-permeability tight, deep–extra deep and unconventional reservoirs will be the principal targets of natural gas exploration and development and the tendency of resource deterioration is inevitable. The pressure to the decrease of gas price rises due to the sustained recession of oil price and the sharp decrease of alternative energy price. The normal means to increase benefits is to control investment strictly and reduce cost greatly. As for the new normal, five suggestions are proposed for natural gas exploration and development in China. Firstly, reinforce exploration continuously by guaranteeing work load and investment at the required level, and tamp the development basis. Secondly, pay much attention to early development evaluation, give prominence to plan implementation design and control productivity construction rhythm. Thirdly, pay attention to the top-level design of mature gas field development and adjustment, with fine description and management as the priority, and improve overall development level. Fourthly, strengthen the researches on exploration and development technologies, with the simplification and practicability of technologies as the focus, and reduce the cost effectively. And fifthly, summarize high-speed development experience of natural gas industry, pay attention to the demonstration and design of key indicators, and strengthen the study on progressive planning.